Olivin, the story of a red wine

In 1977, Georg Winkler-Hermaden returned after an absence of a few years to the family wine estate. Also back then, they were especially intrigued by red wines. Under his father, Burkhardt Winkler-Hermaden, the so-called "Roter Ritter", a Blauer Zweigelt, was already a well-known specialty.

Georg Winkler-Hermaden and his Bavarian wife Margot (whom he had "controverted from beer to wine") were equally fascinated by the idea of producing red wines in addition to white wines on the Kapfensteiner Hügel in the Vulkanland region of Styria, wines that would display power and volcanic fire with elegance. And this from a grape already known to Austrians, the Blauer Zweigelt cultivated in Klosterneuburg.

After intensively investigating grapes, nature and new methods, by 1988 the time had come: This year produced for the first time an extraordinary red wine, not the “usual” Blauer Zweigelt, but rather the "Olivin". The name for this valuable red wine from the best vineyards of their wine estate is the eponymous semi-precious stone (in English “olivine”) of volcanic origin.

"“Green crystal in the volcanic rock unites grape and oak within the wine” – this is the somewhat mystical description written on the label, since the oak used for the small barrels grows in the same soil and the same climate on the Kapfensteiner Kogel.